The EU is finally waking up to the desperate crisis unfolding in the Mediterranean and North Africa, and tomorrow’s extraordinary Council summit is a step towards dealing with its consequences, writes Mirjam van Reisen.

The European Union will press Turkey to cooperate more closely in the fight against Islamic State and urge it not to undermine EU sanctions on Russia on a visit this week intended to give new impetus to often fraught EU-Turkish relations.

While tragedies at sea involving African and Arab refugees continue to shock Europeans, Italy intends to push the migratory issue up the political agenda during its presidency, as Rome feels alone in dealing with what it considers a European "emergency".

Few issues polarise public opinion more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whether it's Europe, or the United States, the problem is the same. One of the main reasons why is the ongoing crisis of what to do with the descendants of the 700,000 plus refugees, created by the first Arab-Israeli war, in 1948. Spread around the world, their numbers today exceed 5 million.

In the shadow of the Crimean crisis, the civil war in Syria risks being forgotten. As the number of those in desperate need continues to grow, financial aid from abroad is diminishing and the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has sounded the alarm, EurActiv Germany reports .

UNESCO, and other partners such as the EU, is working to ensure that a generation of Syrian refugees receives an education, thereby reducing the chance that they turn to extremism, Irina Bokova, the organisation's director-general, told EurActiv.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, with other international partners such as the EU, is committed to ensure that there would be not a generation of Syrian refugees who would be illiterate and likely to be recruited by extremists, Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO told EurActiv.

The Swedish minister for migration, Tobias Billstr öm , has urged the European Commission to act against countries that do not follow EU rules when it comes to shared responsibility for accepting refugees.

European Socialist MEPs expressed strong support for Kristalina Georgieva, the Bulgarian commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis response, after a senior member of the Bulgarian Socialist party slammed her for “not doing enough” in performing her duties.

While the Syrian refugee crisis rages, and migration is at the top of the EU’s human rights concerns, Amnesty’s Salil Shetty visited Brussels to call on EU leaders to take action. “Europe’s pledge of 14,000 places for resettlement and humanitarian admission of Syrian refugees is not a serious one,” Shetty said in an interview with EurActiv.

In the aftermath of the Lampedusa tragedy, i n which hundreds of African migrants lost their lives, the EU's 28 home affairs ministers met in Brussels on Thursday (5 December) to come up with a set of measures to tackle massive migration, but seemed more focused on border security rather than refugees' protection.

The European Commission indirectly warned Greece and Bulgaria today (19 November) to stop turning down Syrian refugees at their borders with Turkey, after the UN issued a similar call just a few days before.

The European Commission indirectly warned Greece and Bulgaria today (19 November) to stop turning down Syrian refugees at their borders with Turkey, after the UN issued a similar call just a few days before.

EU justice ministers held talks in Luxembourg yesterday (8 October) on how to avoid tragedies like the one which saw more than 200 African migrants drown near the Italian island of Lampedusa last week and how to cope with the rising number of Syrian refugees.

Despite the EU’s difficulties to get its voice heard on the Syria crisis, Pierre Vimont argues that the 28-country bloc should not underestimate its soft power footprint: “I don’t pretend that we’re doing as much as we’d like, but we’re as active as possible, at least in our neighbourhood.”

Despite lacking a power broker capability, Europe should be proud of its diplomatic achievements in response to the Arab Spring, European External Action Service Secretary General Pierre Vimont told EurActiv in an interview.

There is talk of the trans-Atlantic relationship. It is not gone, nor even frayed. Europeans come to the United States and Americans go to Europe and both take pleasure in the other. But the connection is thin, writes George Friedman.

The European Parliament called for a binding international resolution on how to deter the use of chemical weapons in Syria yesterday (12 September), as the US and Russian foreign ministers are due to hold a second round of talks on the crisis in Geneva.

The European Parliament called for a binding international resolution on how to deter the use of chemical weapons in Syria yesterday (12 September) , as the US and Russian foreign ministers are due to hold a second round of talks on the crisis in Geneva.